Family Ties
by ErisAceso
Summary: Being the sole guardian to Teddy Lupin is the only thing that's keeping Harry together, and with no living family coming forward to claim him, it looks like it'll be a permanent thing. Until Draco Malfoy walks into the courtroom. Follow along as Harry and Draco are thrown together, attempting to co-parent a rambunctious little boy under the same roof.


**Disclaimer: I do not, unfortunately, own, or have rights to any of the characters, or other things of the Harry Potter Universe. I am not getting paid, again, unfortunately, for my writing.**

(a/n) This idea came to me from a prompt I saw online, and has quickly blossomed into a full fledged, multi-chapter story in my head. I wanted to post this chapter (un-beta'd because I'm impatient) because it, and the rest of the story, are dedicated to my dear friend Ali on her birthday. Sorry I'm late girl! 3

Tentative name for this bad boy: Family Ties

Harry didn't think he'd ever felt more alone. After the war was over and everyone went their separate ways, Harry had been left to contemplate what his life was going to mean, and what he was going to do with, what felt like, his second - or was it third?- chance at life. He'd found immediate solace in Teddy, and of course Andromeda.

Just thinking her name hurt.

They'd been out for a walk in Hogsmeade, Harry intent on buying Teddy a mini Cleansweep designed for children; just like the one Sirius had given him when he was a child. It had been the perfect day, he remembered thinking that it just couldn't get much better, when Andromeda had grabbed his sleeve, looked him straight in the eye and murmured, "I'm sorry Harry." Then she died in his arms.

The healers said that it was an aneurysm, that she'd died painlessly, but they couldn't account for what had clearly been knowledge of her impending death. It bothered him, more than he'd like to admit. It had been months, and he was still thinking about it and was incredibly saddened at the loss of what had been an incredible friend and mentor. It troubled him more that Teddy was going to know the same type of loss that he did, and he wasn't even old enough to know it.

 _Teddy_.

Now there was a bright spot in his life. After Andromeda had passed, the courts had put out an advertisement in the wizarding papers, both local and abroad, as a matter of protocol, to establish any family that might want to take him in. In the meantime, they'd granted sole custody and guardianship to Harry, who'd been designated as Teddy's godfather. He lived and breathed for that boy, the boy whose hair was currently a curious shade of cerulean that he'd seen on the side of a tram last week and was sleeping in his crib upstairs.

Determined to enjoy his morning coffee, his newspaper and his remaining moments of silence before Teddy wakes up, Harry tried to put aside his thoughts of Andromeda, of war, and of loss. Just then, something in his pocket started getting very, very hot. Standing abruptly, he started fishing through his pockets, trying to locate the offending item. When he came across the coin from the Dumbledore's army, that he'd taken to using as an alarm clock, he stopped and urgently tried to remember what he was forgetting. Just then, he saw the reminder float across the surface of the coin, and he spit out the mouthful of coffee he had just taken.

"Shit!" he spat, grabbing a napkin to clean the mess, before remembering just what a situation he was in. He dropped the napkin, leaving it sitting in a sopping wet pile on the table as he ran to take the stairs two at a time, only stopping so that he could enter Teddy's room without scaring him awake.

"Teddy? Teddy, mate, we've got to go! It's time for Aunt Hermione to make it official and make you mine. I can't believe I bloody forgot…"

"'As a bad word…" Teddy murmured sleepily.

"You're right, son. Wake up for me now, OK? We need to get you dressed and get to the Wizangemot. I'll give you a biscuit?"

At that, the toddler's eyes flew wide open and he stood quickly, blinking his sleepy eyes and reaching for Harry.

"There's a good man. Can you change your hair to something more… normal?"

Teddy looked at Harry quizzically, clearly not having a definition for 'normal'. "More like mine?" he pleaded, rifling through the dresser drawers, looking for anyting that might still fit him and manage not to make him look like the worst possible parent in the world for putting it on a child.

"Ew, no. Like Ginny?" Teddy said, his face wrinkled in disgust at the thought of turning his hair to match Harry's.

" _Thanks_ bud," Harry grumbled, trying to fit a pair of corduroy pants over the struggling limbs of the boy in question. "Yes, like Ginny is fine," Harry finished, followed by a quick whoop of triumph as he pulled the shirt over Teddy's head successfully, as well as put on a pair of socks in record time.

Grabbing Teddy, Harry dashed for the fireplace in the kitchen, pausing momentarily to raise the wards behind him, before grabbing a handful of floo powder and saying firmly, "Ministry of Magic."

OoOoO

Gathered in the courtroom next to his solicitor, Harry couldn't help but be extremely grateful for everyone who had come today. Molly and Arthur were currently trying to wrangle an excited Teddy, who was thrilled to have hair that matched and kept trying to hold his head up to theirs to show them just how good a job he'd done at changing his. The rest of the Weasley children were all there as well, giving him encouraging words and firm pats on the back of congratulations.

"Order! All rise for the honorable Chief Warlock, Hermione Granger," the security officer's voice rang out across the room. Everyone rushed back to their seats, and Harry resisted the temptation to try and smooth down his hair. _It's just Hermione, for Godric's sake!_

"Hello Harry," Hermione said with a warm smile for him. Harry looked up at his friend, and beamed back. He was never as proud of Hermione and her accomplishment as he was when he got to watch her in action. "Wotcher Hermione!"

"Alright, down to business," she said, sitting in her chair up on the dais in the front of the room. "We're gathered today because are coming to the conclusion of the mandatory notification period that is required when parentage of a minor is in question. The notices have been put in all of the papers in the required sizing?" she asked, directing her questions the court clerk in the corner.

"Yes, your grace," she said quickly, clearly easy to please.

"Martha, I've asked you time and time again. _Please_ , call me Hermione? Or at worst, Ms. Granger?" Hermione begged, clearly a little exasperated at having to ask again.

"Yes, your grace. I mean, Hermione! I mean, _Ms. Granger…"_

"Quite. All right, so if no one has any objections, I see no reason wh-"

"I have an objection," a man's clear voice rang out across the room, as Harry belated realized that the noise he'd heard was the opening of the courtroom door behind them. Turning to see who was objecting, who was threatening to rip the entire fabric of his life apart, Harry saw, for the first time in not enough years, none other than Draco Malfoy.

"What could _you_ possibly have to say?" Ron spat from the gallery, trying to put himself bodily between Draco and Harry.

"Order." Hermione said sternly, silencing Ron with her word, and a look. "Mr. Malfoy, to what do we owe the… pleasure?"

"I think we both know you're not pleased to see me, _your grace_ , but alas, here I am. I, as the sole remaining member of the House of Malfoy and the House of Black, would like to assert my rights as a guardian for Theodore Lupin."

"Teddy. His name is Teddy," Harry whispered, the breath leaving his lungs as his world seemed to crash around him. Not a moment too soon, Harry's fight, his _fire_ to do what is right came flooding back. "His name is _Teddy_ ," he said again, pulling himself up to his full height, and sliding his wand down his sleeve. "You have no right to guardianship of that boy and you bloody well know it, _Malfoy_ ," he spat, the name leaving a foul taste on his tongue.

"I have just as much, if not more, right than you, _Potter_ ," Draco drawled with more acid than one would think possible. "I am the sole survivor of any of the houses that that boy is related to _by blood_ , and if you'll remember…"

"Yes, _thank-you_ , Mr. Malfoy," Hermione interrupted, trying to regain control of her courtroom. Hermione looked incredibly harassed, and Harry knew it was because she had been working tirelessly in the wizarding law office to have the laws regarding blood status, blood purity, and guardianship abolished; having them blatantly thrown in her face now, in a case that mattered so much to her personally, was a complete slap in the face.

"Then, _your grace_ ," Draco said again, bowing slightly in a mock gesture of respect, "you know that I am within my rights to challenge Mr. Potter's guardianship of my newphew."

"Nephew? _Nephew!?_ " Harry shouted, his rage getting the better of him. It didn't matter if Draco had never looked better, or that the cut of his three piece suit was particularly distracting, he was trying to take his _son_. "Teddy is _not_ your nephew, by anyone's standards. And anyways, where the hell have you _been_ all this time? Nowhere. You've been _nowhere!_ I was the one that walked him through the funeral to the only mother figure he's ever known. I was the one to settle the estate and make sure that he's provided for. How _dare_ you come back here now and try to take him from me? Who do you think you are? _What's in it for you?_ "

After Harry's outburst there was nothing but silence, everyone not daring to move lest they miss his response.

"Family," Draco said quietly, his expression blank and neutral.

"Mr. Malfoy, are you telling me that you are contesting Mr. Potter's petition for guardianship because you would like to be Teddy's _family_?" Hermione demanded, her expression curious, like when examining a painting that had not turned out the way it was intended.

"Yes. I have no remaining relatives, save for that little boy, and I intend on getting to know him. He's my family, he's my blood. He's _mine_."

"No, he bloody well isn't," Harry whispered as he drew his wand completely from his sleeve.

The next moments were ones of confusion, pain and lots and lots of screaming from the current Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Harry had thrown quite a few impressive jinxes and hexes in Draco's direction, as Ron had physically thrown himself at the man. Molly, familiar with the tempers of young men, had ducked behind one of the pews with Teddy and erected a silencing shield around them as he played with some quidditch figurines, completely unaware of the commotion around him. Hermione, completely incensed that anyone, let alone her best friend, would dare to use offensive magic in her courtroom had immobilized everyone where they stood.

"Are. You. _Kidding me!?_ " she yelled, forgetting her professional capacity for a moment. "Can you two really not see farther than your own di-," she cut herself off, remembering momentarily about the office she held. "You both would make incredibly guardians for that boy for completely different reasons, so, this is my ruling," she started and Harry knew, he just _knew_ that he was in trouble. The last time he'd seen that smug, satisfied look on her face she had just maneuvered him into telling her and Ron into admitting that he was gay and accepting a blind date with a bloke from the magical law enforcement office. He still had _no_ idea how she'd managed to do it, but it was masterful on her part.

"You will _both_ be guardians for Teddy, for the period of one year."

"One _year_!?" Draco and Harry yelled simultaneously, Draco speaking through an incredibly bloody nose that did not seem to want to stop bleeding.

"Yes, one year," Hermione repeated with relish, watching them as they looked at each other with malice.

"How exactly would you propose we do that, given that we live in separate dwellings, _your grace_?" Draco drawled, trying to compose himself using his old and familiar weapon of snark.

"Draco, you call me 'your grace' with that tone one more time and I'll throw you in azkaban for a day, just for fun," Hermione said darkly, looking at the court secretary and giving her clear non verbal instructions that what she'd said should not be included for the official record.

"Just great, a clear abuse of authority," Draco started, getsuring wildly between Hermione and the court secretary.

"You say abuse, I say use Mr. Malfoy, and either way it _is_ my authority. As I said, you will _both_ be guardians for one Theodore Lupin until the date one year from now, where we will reevaluate this situation. You are to accomplish this by cohabitating at twelve Grimmauld Place for the duration of the evaluation period."

"You've got to be joking," Draco said, looking back and forth between Harry and Hermione like they'd planned it.

"I'm not Mr. Malfoy. If you don't like these terms, you're more than welcome to forfeit your application for guardianship and we will continue with the proceedings as originally planned. The choice is yours," she finished, waiting for him to decide.

Harry was so stunned at the current turn of events, that he didn't know what to say. Finally, he realized that this was completely preposterous and could not possibly be legally enforceable until Draco made his decision, so he attempted to say just that - only no words were coming out of his mouth. _What the fuck is going on?_

"Fine," Draco ground out, his teeth clenched you could almost hear them grinding against one another.

Just like that, Harry's voice returned and everything he'd been thinking came spluttering out of his mouth at once. "This is ridiculous, Hermione, you can't possibly be suggesting that Draco frigging Malfoy live in my house!?"

"Yes, Harry, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. Now, since Mr. Malfoy has already agreed to the terms of the court, a magical contract has been created and will only be nullified on the day the term ends. Do we understand one another?" Hermione asked, shuffling the papers in her hands, casting one of them to become a memo and watching as it flew off through the door to the courtroom.

Unable to do anything but nod as a result of their bottled anger, both Harry and Draco both turned and went to leave the courtroom. As such, they both tried to exit the swinging door that partitioned the spectators from the participants, at the same time.

The moment their shoulders touched a small spark of blue light passed between them, making both men grimace and start accusingly at the other, as if it had been intentional. Ever the gentleman, Draco let Harry pass first before blustering by him and out the door, as quickly as his feet could carry him. Harry, whose face was blank and stony, collected Teddy, said his thank-you's to the Weasleys and made his way to the lobby so he could go home.

Behind them both, Hermione Granger was grinning like a Cheshire Cat who found a bowl of water, that just turned to cream.

OoOoO

Harry returned home to twelve Grimmauld Place, trying to keep himself together for Draco's sake. _How the hell am I supposed to live with_ that man _for the next_ year? he thought to himself furiously.

Knowing it wasn't the best option, but desperately needing some time to think, he grabbed a blanket and tossed it down on the floor in the parlour, and turned on the muggle television. Teddy loved watching cartoons, and Harry didn't think a little TV here, or there, was really going to do much harm. _Me punching holes in the wall in complete and utter frustration? That's likely to do him harm…_

Being sure that Teddy was fully engrossed in the cartoon at hand, Harry decided to duck upstairs to the bathroom to collect himself. He cast a monitoring charm that would tell him whether or not Teddy was still in the room, as well as a sound amplification charm that allowed him to hear what was going on in the room at all times, and quietly padded up the stairs.

When he got to the top of the landing, something didn't feel right. Attuned to the very vibrations of the house, and perhaps from a life of living on the run, Harry was incredibly sensitive to change. Pulling his wand and getting into a defensive stance for the second time that day, Harry made his way down the hallway to the room that used to belong to Regulus.

In the doorway, a house elf was busily unpacking trunk upon trunk of clothing, accessories, books, trinkets and other assorted oddities.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Harry demanded, incensed as he saw what was clearly a Slytherin scarf being unloaded and carefully hung on a hanger.

"Eeeeeeeeek!" the house elf squealed, turning around in fright and promptly hiding behind the trunk it was trying to empty. "Please Mr. Potter, I is just helping Master Malfoy unpack his things as he asked. I has no choice! Master says you would be angry with me, but I's not believing him, sir. Dobby said you were a most reasonable wizard, and I believes Dobby, sir," she said, rambling as she peaked over the top of the trunk, hesitating to make eye contact with him.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Harry fought to take a deep breath. _Great, I've been reduced to terrifying house elves now. Just, great._ "Did you say you knew Dobby?" he asked finally, the control on his temper restored.

"Yes, sir!" the elf squeaked, sensing the return of his equilibrium. Dobby and I is working together at Malfoy manor before…. Before Dobby… left," she finished lamely, looking pointedly at Harry's feet.

"What is your name?" Harry asked, trying to assess the personality of the elf in front of him. _Does Malfoy mistreat this poor creature? I'd hate to make a habit of giving Malfoy house elves my socks_ , he thought to himself.

"My name is Ceeley, Mr. Harry Potter, sir. I's happy to be meeting you, I am, sir," the house elf squeaked, bowing deeply.

"Yes, well… Ceeley, I'm not mad at you. I _am_ however, completely irritated that you _Master_ has decided to move in here without discussing it with me.

"He hases very little choice abouts it, sir, and begging your pardon. The magical contracts thatses put in place hases given him two hours to gets his things in order, sir. Nots a lot of time given everything that Master Malfoy is involved in, sir."

"What is it that Master Malfoy is involved in, Ceeley?" Harry asked innocently, surveying the house elf carefully. Just as he suspected, the house elf looked incredibly afraid and was searching the woefully empty room for something to punish herself.

"That won't be necessary Ceeley," Draco said from behind Harry in the doorway.

Wheeling around, Harry got his first eye full of Draco Malfoy in casual clothing. At school it was always robes, or school uniforms, but this was Draco Malfoy in _muggle_ clothes. Perfectly tailored jeans hung from his hips in a way that seemed completely precarious, yet designed for him. He wore a button down shirt in white that was currently rolled up to his elbows, revealing strong and well muscled forearms.

 _What has he been doing since we left school that gave him that build?_ Harry caught himself thinking, before he shook himself. "What are you doing here, Malfoy?"

"I'm moving in, or did you miss that when you were talking to _my_ house elf? Leave it to you to try to wring information from the poor thing. You know that they're forbidden from revealing their master's secrets. Why did you even ask?"

"I… I was just trying to see if she… if she needed…" Harry stammered, still a bit off guard at how fit Draco looked.

"Help? What, you thought I was abusing her? I'll have you know that Ceeley's been in my family since I was a child, and she's been mine since I turned three. I'd never mistreat her, she's family."

"No, I… I didn't mean it that way," Harry ground out, horrified that he'd managed to humiliate himself this way in the first hour of Draco moving in.

"Right," said Draco, moving past Harry into his room. As had happened in the courtroom, an arc of blue-white light jumped between them as Draco brushed Harry's arm on the way past, and both of them jumped back.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Harry demanded, his defensive stance back, and the grip on his wand tight, once again.

"How the hell should I know?" spat Draco, sick and tired of being on the other end of Harry Potter's wand. "For all I know, it's a spell you put on this place to ward of anyone you think of as _intruding_."

"The first time it happened we were at the courthouse, you prat, and if I'd put a spell on this house to ward off intruders, you wouldn't have made it through the door."

"Right, because you're The Chosen One," Draco muttered, opening the nearest trunk and dumping clothing haphazardly on the bed, causing Ceeley to squeak in alarm, lest the clothing be wrinkled.

"No, because if I thought that anyone was going to harm me, or that child, they wouldn't be living," Harry said darkly.

Draco's head snapped up and he looked at Harry intently, trying to gauge the present climate. The truth he heard in those words was unmistakable, but he was unclear whether or not Potter thought he was trying to hurt him and Teddy right _now._

"Fair point," Draco conceded, standing straight with his hands up in a gesture of surrender as Harry's wand was still pointed at his midsection, and the slight tremble in his wand hand was evident, as was how fast he was breathing. "Harry, you know I'm not here to hurt you now though, right? I'm here because the judge ordered me to be. _Hermione ordered me to be_."

Harry's vision widened abruptly, and the sights and sounds of the room became clear, along with the fact that he was clearly holding Draco Malfoy at wand point in the middle of one of the spare bedrooms in his home. _What the hell?_ he thought to himself, dropping his wand immediately.

"I… right. Make yourself at home," Harry said, turning on his heel and leaving the room, rushing down the stairs. _What the fuck just happened?_ _How long have I been up there talking with Malfoy? How long has Teddy been alone?_

He entered into the parlour and there was Teddy, fully immersed in the same television show he'd been watching when Harry left. It was one of those educational jobs, that only lasted twenty minutes, so he knew he couldn't have been gone long.

Footsteps sounded on the floorboards behind him and he whirled to see Malfoy coming up behind him, walking nonchalantly with his hands in his jeans pockets. _How does he even have room to put his hands in there?_ Harry thought absentmindedly, trying to gather his wits about him.

"Do those kinds of things happen to you often?" Draco asked conversationally, like he was asking him about his favorite color, or his quidditch team preferences.

"What kinds of things?" Harry demanded, feeling distinctly uncomforable with the current line of questioning.

"The narrow vision, heavy breathing, anxiety, feeling threatened in non-threatening situations…"

"That's not what happened," Harry insisted, running his hands through his hair and looking side-eyed at Teddy to see how much of this conversation he was paying attention to; none of it, as it turned out.

"Oh, really?" Draco sniped, leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed over his chest. _Good Godric he looks delectable_ , Harry thought, followed quickly by, _what the fuck!?_ He couldn't get a handle on his thoughts, salacious or otherwise.

"Look, I didn't know you were coming, I stumbled across your house elf moving things into a room in _my_ house and I started asking some questions. That's hardly irregular! You walk into my house, looking like _that_ , start snarking at me like we're back at Hogwarts, and I'm just supposed to, what, stand there and say 'Hey Malfoy, welcome home'? Give me a break."

"Looking like what?" Draco demanded, standing up straight and surveying his appearance looking for some sort of defect.

"What?" Harry gaped at him.

"You said I walked in here 'looking like that'. Looking like what, exactly?"

"Like… I don't know, like… that?" Harry ended, gesturing lamely towards Malfoy, trying to figure out what had posessed him to make a comment on his appearance in the first place. _Get a grip!_

"Like a muggle? Because I'll remind you, you're currently sporting a similar outfit Potter, and besides, didn't you grow up Muggle? How can you have a disdain for their clothing preferences if you grew up that way and wear them yourself? Or am _I_ just not supposed to wear them?"

"Oh come off it," Harry growled, losing his patience with the conversation. "It has nothing to do with the fact that the clothing are muggle in nature, it has to do with what you look like in them."

"And just what do I look like in them?" Draco demanded, the control on his own temper slipping.

Sensing a blow out, Harry said nothing, turned and walked into the kitchen, renewing the monitoring spells he'd placed on the parlor earlier in case Teddy lost interest in the television.

Draco, completely incensed now, chased Harry into the kitchen yelling "Just where do you think you're going? You can't say something like that to me and just walk away. Tell me, right now, what you meant by that. _What do I look like in muggle clothes!?_ "

Harry turned abruptly as he entered the kitchen, so abruptly, that Draco came up short, his face inches from Harry's.

"You want to know what you look like in those clothes?" Harry asked, his voice low, and vaguely threatening.

Draco nodded, confused by the tone in Harry's voice. Harry got even further into Malfoy's space, while Malfoy backed up, all the way up, until his back came into contact with the door.

"Here, let me show you," Harry said, and he kissed Draco Malofy, straight on the mouth.

For one moment, one blissful, memorable moment, Draco kissed Harry back. His mouth, surprisingly soft considering how sharp his features were, seemed to melt against Harry's. Harry leaned in, intent on enjoying the moment, however fleeting it would prove to be, until two hands landed on his chest and shoved him violently backward into the kitchen table.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?" Draco demanded, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, eyes looking terrified and furious.

"You asked," was all Harry could say, as he shoved his hands in his pockets, still tingling for where they'd touched him.

"I didn't ask for _that_ ," Draco snarled, turning to walk out of the room.

"Didn't you?" Harry retorted, his face stony and unreadable. Draco had stopped and stiffened at the reply, but said nothing as he stormed out of the room, and back up the stairs where he locked himself in his room.

 _Well this ought to be interesting_ , Harry thought to himself. _Thanks a lot Hermione._


End file.
